The main advantages of pot seedlings transplanting are as follows: 1) growth periods of vegetables can be shortened, crop arrangement is facilitated and land utilization is improved; 2) the root system of pot seedlings will grow well after the seedlings are planted in the soil, which can provide convenient conditions for follow-up management. Since there is no suitable supporting machinery, the production of vegetables and flowers have been labor intensive industries for a long time. It relies on manual transplanting with high labor intensity, low work efficiency and low transplanting quality, besides, it is difficult to work on large area of land for farmers. Labor cost accounts for over 50% of the total production cost and farmers have to produce in small-scale land with low production efficiency, which restricts the development of vegetable and flower planting industry in China. Mechanized transplanting can reduce labor intensity, improve work efficiency and survival rate of pot seedlings, and it can also improve economic returns and social benefits compared with the traditional manual-transplanting. It is becoming increasing popular with vegetable and flower producers.
The purpose of the pot seedlings feeding mechanism is to deliver a pot seedling into a planter real-time. But the rotary holding cup structure of the existing semi-automatic transplanter is usually used for the seedlings feeding system, only one pot seedling can be fed at a time, and operations cannot be discontinuous. The labor intensity is relatively high and the operators will become tired easily, as a result, the seedling is missed and the transplant quality goes down. The transplanting speed is difficult to be improved effectively influenced by this artificial operation. A fully-automatic transplanter has an automatic seedlings feeding system, which does not require manual seedling feeding, and has a high transplanting speed. However, the fully-automatic transplanter has a relatively complex mechanism system and a very high cost. It is not suitable for medium-scale and small-scale users and the current state of agricultural development in China. In the invention patent (application No. 201210317407.8) of an automatic seedlings picking and feeding mechanism for pot seedling transplanting, an automatic seedlings picking and feeding mechanism for pot seedling transplanting was disclosed, including a displacement mechanism, a support stand, a slide rod, a connecting-rod mechanism and a seedlings clamping mechanism. The support stand is installed on the displacement mechanism so as to implement position switching of the support stand between the seedling picking action and the seedling feeding action. One end of the slide rod is inserted into a slide sleeve movable inside a slide groove on the support stand, and the other end of the slide rod is connected to the seedling clamping mechanism. The displacement mechanism is used to implement switching of the seedlings clamping mechanism between the seedling picking procedure position and the seedling feeding procedure position. The connecting-rod mechanism is used to control the rotation of the slide rod and the seedling clamping mechanism and implement the closing and the opening of a seedling clamp. This device has a relatively complex mechanical structure and high production cost, the seedling clamping mechanism of the device cannot precisely position a pot seedling into a seedling clamping process as well, which results in the loss of seedlings. In the invention patent (application No. 2011101335051) of a mechanical seedling feeding transplanter, a mechanical seedling feeding mechanism which can replace manual operation is disclosed. Multiple pot seedlings can be placed into a mechanical seedling feeding system each time, with the control of electric-control system, the seedling feeding mechanism can drop seedlings automatically by using delivery cups. Thereby, this mechanism improves the speed and efficiency of transplanting work, meanwhile, the production cost is reduced. However, the seedling feeding mechanism has a complex design and a relatively large quantity of parts.